Gems?

[blueyogaball 3]

Gems are pretty much useless in TFC. Who else agrees they need a use? I was thinking you would be able to polish gems into tools or armor. Leave suggestions below.

[YourMajesty 10]

It is truly, truly outrageous.

 

But I dunno.  You really can't do anything practical with gemstones.

 

It might be nice to be able to place them in the world as a microblock, I guess, but I don't know how to bring the gem's quality into.  I suppose the varying levels of quality would just impart a larger number of sparkle particles with better quality, but I don't know if that'd be worthwhile.

[Antor 1]

I have two option for gemstone usage:

 

1) use the gem into armor building as a refining end step, either just to give you +100 swag points or to add magical proprieties to the armor itself (and before anybody complains about realism that's what many gemstones are used for real! google "gemstone magic" and behold 6M+ results).

 

2) let us place the gems in piles on the floor so we can jump in and swim in them.

[mossman 15]

add magical proprieties to the armor itself (and before anybody complains about realism that's what many gemstones are used for real!

 

...What?

[HiddenSage 39]

Going to point out that believability!=realism here.

 

If Bioxxx decides there's a viable purpose to having magic in this game, magic will be in this game. 

 

It not, then not.

 

As it stands, it does seem like it would be convenient for gems to be placable/usable SOMEHOW. My favorite idea has been what Your Majesty said: make them placable microblocks. Only placable inside of chiseled stone (that is, use the gem to replace a piece of a block you tapped out with the chisel). Coloration and size would vary slightly based on the grade of the gemstone: chipped would have a crack on the screen, and the 'exquisite ones' would maybe be a 2x2 instead of 1x1 piece. 

 

This would open up a ton of options in sculpture work, if we could embed gems in our stonemasonry. The only downside is that it would probably take a crap-ton of work to code the ability for two different block/item id's to exist inside of one space. Ohh, and the gems would almost definitely be irretrievable once placed, just as chiseled stone blocks are now.

[Rev 11]

This is stupid.... >.> 

[fallonsky 19]

yay on both. i want my pool of gems like Scrooge mc ducks pool of gold

[blueyogaball 3]

I'm already visualizing ductape on your mouth

[Terex 108]

Gems to gemstone blocks -> nice decoration or construction materials.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

hate to squash the fun here, but there won't be any tools made from gems.

[Ranadiel 5]

Why not just use the gems as decoration? It could be done in both armors and blocks. This would add the a bit more fun where you could brighten your rooms with nice crystals. Why not make it like planks, where you can place them in various spots and various levels of gems would give them different shapes and size (hard to implement i imagine) or different textures.

 

Another option (and a bit bigger one) - implement optics and using light as a means for mechanisms. Cutting smaller and bigger gems into lens, creating windows and mirrors from gems that can cast light into different spots.

 

Even another option could be to be able to crush the gems in a special contraption (built from various metals or stones) and such powder could be used in some way.

[Hyena Grin 92]

Just get rid of them.There will evidently never be NPCs who might buy them. There will (probably) never be magic that uses them. People have talked about using them as currency on multiplayer servers but I doubt very much that happens often. I'd rather see precious metals craftable into coins or something for currency.

 

Gems are even more worthless than dandelions. At least you can plant dandelions.

 

If there's no plans for them, get rid of 'em.

[Terex 108]

Why lose the gems? Not everything must have a purpose. Likewise, there is a whole list of metals and alloys that currently have no use in the game, but may someday. 

 

I like my gem collection and also, I like my protection meters

[Hyena Grin 92]

'If there's no plans for them, get rid of them.'I agree that all items in the game should have some purpose. Any that have no purpose and can't have purpose, should probably go.The only conceivable use I can see for gems in the absence of a 'luxury' economy (where NPCs buy them simply because they are coded to buy them) is magic. Jewels do not really have any other purpose. Diamonds have some uses, but that's well outside the conceptual timeframe for TFC.

 

Dunk and Bioxx have been kinda vague about the magic issue. From what I recall the discussion was about 'material' magic, and if the plan for that includes gems then awesome. But if not, they should go. Just like rotten meat.

[Terex 108]

I'm pretty sure that the devs have said no magic and no NPCs. Why remove gems for the sake of removing them out of the game? If you don't like them, just ditch them out of your inventory and let them despawn.

[Hyena Grin 92]

They said there would never be NPCs (I feel like I am repeating myself here), and they have not said there would never be magic, they said there would never be 'spells' and the like. But have implied they might do something with magical materials.

 

Anyway, there is no point in having a having a bunch of items in the game (there are actually a lot of different gems) that intuitively suggest value but are actually meaningless inventory paperweights. You could dig out a 30x30 area of stone and wind up with 6 different kinds of gem, each taking up a slot that could otherwise be used to contain 64 stones or 16 ore. At least there's only one kind of rotten meat. From what I can tell there's at least a dozen different kinds of useless gems with their varying qualities (as if you could have different qualities of 'useless') and I don't see the point. It is an artifact, it is messy game design, especially with the auto-pickup that is featured in the game. 

 

Useless, valueless items only work when they are features of the environment. Like plates and forks in Skyrim, or flowers in Minecraft, for example. When you walk across a flower it doesn't pop into your inventory. You can 'pick' the flower and even place it somewhere else, but it doesn't jump into your inventory (with the exception of when you break a block beneath it). If plates and forks just leaped into your inventory in Skyrim when you got too close to them, or if flowers jumped into your inventory whenever you walked over, then they would be annoying. Such is the case for gems. I don't have a problem with useless items per se, but when they actively make a nuisance of themselves, they need to go.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Just my opinion, but whenever I find gems of higher than normal quality I like to decorate my house with them by placing them in item frames. I think they look pretty and are a nice change from paintings.

[Rhapsodyman2000 22]

I wish there was a Crown item that I could right click and set gems into

[cpy 3]

Maybe when used in prospector, to give pick directional enhanced detection for 10 uses, bigger gem greater range. Maybe small gems could be used to detect rock type layers for few uses. Like 5 use to see what rock types are below.

Then when you find something it can plop sign with found items, yay settlers 2!

[msmith 1]

You could dig out a 30x30 area of stone and wind up with 6 different kinds of gem, each taking up a slot that could otherwise be used to contain 64 stones or 16 ore.

 

Six? Behold the results of digging out 25x25x25 (it was an experiment in propick results):

 

It would be really awesome if there was something we could DO with the things other than drop them in lava.  I suspect they're too common even to be used as the basis for a server economy, yes?

[Hyena Grin 92]

I see I was being wildly over-conservative in my estimate. ;P

 

Yeah, see, this is what I'm talking about. That many different types of completely and utterly useless objects just boggles my mind. At the VERY LEAST can we reduce it down to one quality of gem per type? I mean, that image above is absurd. It would border on excessive even if gems had a use.

[Terex 108]

Maybe devs can implement a Diablo-style mechanic such that x amount of gems of the same kind and type can be made in the crafting area to a one higher tier quality gem

[Ranadiel 5]

I have a proposition for the gems. Why not just make them a bit magical? Imagine that each gem has some inner energy stored in it, different gems have different energies. Using some new tool (or existing ones with modes) you can create sockets and place the gems in various places - different blocks or tools.

 

This borders on magic, but it would have to be properly described to be "believable". The gems have some mysterious energy in them, giving special results (divination, hardness, speed or whatever). The effects would be small and dependant on the gem size.

 

I have created a fictional world for one of my stories where people use various size and type of gems with hidden energy as catalysts for magic.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

they have not said there would never be magic, they said there would never be 'spells' and the like.

 

 

Where exactly was this mentioned?

 

I think the current standpoint on magic is that vanilla's implementation won't be used, nor will systems similar to many magic mods you see out there. If any sort of "magic" were to be involved in the game, it would probably be limited to a dimension other than the overworld.

 

Besides, what other than "magic" really explains why the undead are roaming around or how endermen teleport? You really need to define "magic" if you want to have any sort of discussion on it.

[Terex 108]

On the subject of a possibility to travel to another "dimension", maybe space travel to other "planets" would be cool. I'd also still be interested in seeing the nether revamped for TFC. An excursion on the core-mantle boundary would be neat